TVSquad

Bob Geldof, musician, social activist, Live Aid founder and the brains behind the Live 8 concert, is planning to launch a new broadband and television channel in 2008 dedicated to promoting world peace. The new venture will be financed by Point of Peace, a Norwegian human rights organization, and Geldof will launch the channel through his production company, Ten Alps. There's not much information on the channel or what sort of programming it will have, though some sources say the new channel will encourage Western nations to help poorer countries.

My initial thought is that Geldof is going to face an uphill struggle trying to get people to watch a channel dedicated to spreading peace throughout the world. That's not to say most of us wouldn't love to see such a thing happen in our lifetime, but no matter how much we advocate peace in our day to day lives, television still remains a medium mostly dedicated to indulging that part of our brain that loves violence and bloodshed. Getting people to watch a channel about peace is going to involve more than just creating entertaining programming, it's going to mean getting people to approach TV in an entirely new manner.

Not too long ago I mentioned that CBS and YouTube had struck a deal where clips from various CBS shows would become available on a special YouTube channel. That channel, which you can find at youtube.com/cbs doesn't have a ton of clips on it just yet, but you can catch bits from Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, NCIS, Jericho, and clips from CBS News. The deal also includes content from CSTV and Showtime, though currently it looks like the majority of the content is from the CBS network. The deal with YouTube also allows CBS to keep or remove copyrighted content from the site if the network so chooses, which I assume is a way to get people to watch CBS content through this specific channel, only. I think now that networks are offering full episodes, a few small clips aren't going to impress Web surfers too much. What do you guys think?